Is it Soda or Pop? (Coke?)

Today we started learning about longitude and latitude. We started off class learning we have a quiz tomorrow, but if I study for it then it will be easy. It is also the start of mid-quarter grades and except for the two late blogs, I have done everything else on time in this class. Here are some of the notes I took on today's power point presentation:

Grids and Time Zones: ways of describing where things are
GEOGRAPHY - study of where things are found on Earths surface and the reasons for the locations

1. Where are people and activities found on Earth?
2. Why are they found there?

MAP - two-dimensional or flat surface model of Earths surface

CARTOGRAPHY - art & science of map making

Maps Purposes

1. As a reference tool to identify an objects absolute and relative location
2. As a communications tool to convey the distribution of human activities or physical features

ABSOLUTE LOCATION: Position as expressed in degrees, minutes, and seconds of latitude(North or South of the equator) and longitude(East or West of Prime Meridian)

RELATIVE LOCATION: regional position or situation of a place relative to position of other places

LATITUDE - geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south position of a point on Earths surface (measured by invisible lines parallel to equator

Significant Parallels
Arctic Circle
Tropic of Cancer
Equator
Tropic of Capricorn
Antarctic Circle

LONGITUDE - geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position on a point (measured by imaginary lines; runs through poles)

• Prime Meridian passes through Greenwich, England, given 0 degree longitude
• Measures degrees east or west from Prime Meridian

Self-Driving Cars??????????

Today in class we were joined by Laura, who switched honors classes. We started off class going back to Mr. Shick's blog and learning about situation. We discusses many things like minimum wage, how living in different places effects pay and manufacturing, how robots will affect future jobs and opportunities, and about Chicago and how its location was/is very important. Here are some notes I took on situation:

Situation - the location of a place relative to other places

• helps us to find an unfamiliar place by comparing its location with a familiar one
• helps us understand the importance of a location. Ex. some places are important because they are accessible to other places due to their location
• We identify important buildings, streets, and other landmarks to direct people to a designed location
• Helps us understand the importance of a location

How do geographers describe where they are?

In class today Mr.Schick took awhile to get on veracross to take attendance, so the class basically slept. Everyone was in class today and that made Mr. Shick very happy. Today we were introduced to an important question "How do geographers describe where they are?"  Here are a few notes I took:

• Geographers can describe the location of a place by site, which is the physical character of a place
• Important site characteristics: climate, water sources, topography, soil, vegetation, latitude, and elevation
• Humans have the ability to modify the characteristics of a site

We also learned that most people in our class were born in Maryland, and I'm the only one who was born out of the country. Mr. Shick also talked about how when he came to Maryland that eating crabs was a weird phenomenon to him. How they just threw the crabs alive into a big pot of boiling water and then threw them on the table to smash. He was very freaked out at those facts, and it didn't help when Griffin told him that they threw spices at the crabs eyes so they would burn.

Map Quiz's

I forgot to do yesterdays blog :)

Yesterday in class we did a game called "Ok, Stop!!" where we would watch the Gall - Peters map video and stop it at points we wanted to discuss. It made us think more about when they flipped the map, and we all argued why it should or should not be a thing. We all were confused by the end of the discussion about our North and South poles. After our intense conversation about the earth being upside down we got our tests back. I got a 101% on my test, and I thought I would get a lot less than that, so i'm very happy. We also found that that 94.5% of our class said that Socrates was not guilty, but 2 people said he was. We then started arguing on why he was or was not guilty. Both sides make good points, but i honestly think that he might have been guilty now. I think he might be guilty now because he admitted to his crimes and could've defended against them and lived. Basically we argued the whole time and I felt bad for the shadow.

Difference Between Peters Projection Map & The Mercator

Pros of the Peters projection map:

• An equal-area projection that would show the correct sizes of countries relative to each other.
• Has the right sizes so there is no bias in who are the most dominating countries
• Made twenty years after the Mercator
• Used in most British school systems

Cons of the Peters projection map:

•  In its quest of removing size distortions, the map stretched some places near the poles horizontally to a shocking degree.
• Very vertically directed

Pros of The Mercator:

• Very popular, and widely used in USA school systems
• It was created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 – a time when Antarctica hadn’t even been discovered.
• preserves angles and directions in all areas

Cons of the Mercator:

• Was originally used for sailing and sailors
• Country and continent sizes are not accurate at all
• Very biased towards bigger empires

Peter's World Map

Today was a very interesting day. Our class learned about two different maps. The first one is the Mercator which is the most commonly used map in the United States of America. When the class had to compare this map with the Gall–Peters projection map we all thought that it looked really stretched out, and that it was wrong. It turns out that the Peters projection map is actually a lot more accurate than the Mercator map, and is closer the the actual Earth. The Mercator map is used almost everywhere, but is very inaccurate. The Mercator map has Greenland half the size of Africa, Alaska bigger than Mexico, Europe bigger than South America , etc. The good thing about the Peters projection map is that it has all of the right sizes and shapes, and still has the same longitude & latitude of the Mercator. In my opinion, I think schools should follow Boston and start using the Peters projection map because it is more accurate and precise. A lot of people use the Mercator still because they are used to it, but if we used the Peters map with young kids, then they will get used to the right map. Also the Mercator shows how the northern hemisphere is more dominant than the southern hemisphere, so in the video they just flipped it. When they flipped it, it looked so weird but also showed how other countries feel in the bottom left corner. The Peters map also made continents and countries smaller so continents like Europe wouldn't be falsely dominating over continents like Africa and South America. I think the Peters projection map will show us the world better, and give kids a more accurate version of our world.

Our First Test!!!!!

Today was our first Human Geography test. I think I did really well on it and it was pretty easy. I also know 100% i got the bonus question right, so if I did get something wrong then at least I have that. The two essays were easier than I though and were both about Socrates trial. The test also had some Message to Garcia questions, definitions of vocab, some short answers, "polis" words, and more. The only one that I think I could've gotten wrong was the polis one. I was surprised to see that arete wasn't on the test, or I could've just missed it. I'm hoping that this will get my grade up to an A because right now its a C or 75%. Its a C because I turned one of my journals in late, but this week I have done all of them. I don't know how much to write on here, so I don't know if this is enough or not. Also arete has a red squiggly line under it , polis does too. The test overall was fair, and went over everything we have gone over in class. 10/10 and would recommend!

Socrates - His life (Notes Continued)

Socrates - Early Years

• as a young man worked as a stonemason
• fought heroically in Peloponnesian War
• he was a common man
• his work & battle experiences may have shaped the way he viewed the world

Socrates - The Teacher

• met with young students in workshops just outside the agora
• his method: ask series of questions to determine their underlying beliefs and extent of their knowledge
• this led to the scientific method, starts with hypothesis,then prov or disprove your theory through experimentation

Controversy

• Athens had brilliant thinkers from all over the world that shared their knowledge on everything they know like astronomy, medicine, philosophy, .etc
• Made his students start to question and think about the things they were traditionally taught

Trial

1. Socrates was charged with 2 crimes:

• Corruption of Athens youth
• impiety (not believing in gods of the state)

His Defense:

• "Its my job to be gadfly to the lazy, sluggish horse that is Athens"
• " I should actually be rewarded with free dinners for life"

End

• jury of 500 male citizens (279 said guilty - 221 said not guilty)
• death by drinking poison hemlock
• could've  escaped but refused, proving his loyalty to Athenian democracy

You Idiot!

• an idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centered & concerned almost exclusively with private, not public affairs

"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates

Mini Research Stuff

Today we started the class talking about 9-11 and Mr. Schick's experience with it, and what was happening in the school during that time. We also talked about how the whole nation just shut down for days after and during 9-11. Now were doing some research stuff, so here they are:

Agora - A central public in ancient Greek city-states, used for market places, assemblies, and meetings; center of athletic, artistic, spiritual, and political life in the city/state

Polis - political entities ruled by their bodied of citizens; origin of words politics, metropolitan, poll

Importance of 508 BC - Introduction of Democracy; Klisthenis was put in charge; first time in recorded history a people had revolted against their rulers. Ever! Since then... United States, France, China (2 times), Russia, Iran, Egypt, many others

Socrates - A classical Greek philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and as being the first moral philosopher of the Western ethical tradition of thought

Death of Socrates - Socrates ticked off the Athenian leaders. After his trial, he was found guilty of corrupting the young minds of Athens and of impiety. He was sentenced to die by drinking hemlock, which is poisonous

Socratic method - a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions

Idiot in Greece - A non-politician; self-centered person who didn't care about their place in politics

Synergy - Democracy -> Excellence (Greeks believed strongly in their democracy)

Excellence Notes Continued

Today I learned that you can't do your blog over the weekend so right now I have a C. I know it will go up, but its very nerve wrecking seeing my grade that low. We also found out that we have a test on Friday! In class we took notes on the rest of the power point, so here it is:

Vocab

• Perihelion - point when a planet is closest to the sun, therefore at its brightest
• Slipshod - careless, lackadaisical
• Imbecility - incapability, stupidity
• Stenographer - person who takes dictation in shorthand (like a secretary/ writes fast)

"What is Initiative? I'll tell you: It is doing the right thing without being told"

Arete

• excellence of any kind
• moral virtue
• fulfillment of purpose or function
• but mostly...
• The act of living up to one's full potential

More about it

• arete involves all of the abilities and potentialities available to humans
• the highest human potential is knowledge - all other human abilities are derived from this
• if arete is knowledge and study, then  the highest human knowledge is knowledge about knowledge itself

Excellence!!!!! Notes from the Powerpoint

On Friday we read the rest of "A Message to Garcia" and took notes about excellence in the work place. Some kids got up and read and it was funny to see the pronunciations of the weird and big words. Last blog I read ahead on "A Message to Garcia" and related it to High school, so i mostly covered what we learned in class but here's the notes i took on the power point presentation. 

Excellence

1. A Message to Garcia

• inspirational essay (reprinted as pamphlet and book)
• sold over 40 million copies 
• made in 37 different languages
• 2 movies made about it in 1916 & 1936
• "take a message to Garcia" is a phrase that became popular and meant taking initiative
• Garcia: revolutionary seeking Cuban independence
•  Rowan: Army officer (West Point, class of 1881)
• Pres. McKinley (1897-1901) assassinated by anarchist 6 months in 2nd term
• (re)named tallest mountain in North America after him (until 2015) now called Denali

The Difficulty of High School

Today in class we started with getting our assigned phone spots. Only one kid didn't send the right blog link so we waited for him to do that before we started. We talked about how difficult high school is compared to others school levels because of time management and back-to-back classes. In high school student athlete normally spend 14 1/2 hours doing high school related things which is from morning to night. I specifically said student athlete because 80% of the kids that go to John Carroll play a sport and have less time for work and studying than regular students. We all agreed that high school is more individualistic than middle school and for high school you need to be organized with classes, sports, books, and free time. Success in high school is based on time management because if you spend your free mod unwisely or go on your phone after a practice you will probably be doing work even later at night. Its also harder because you only have 5 minutes in between classes and you learn back-to-back-to-back. Time is something that high school kids have to stress about, but also are given rigorous classes and loads of home work. As we get farther into high school everyone is focused on the SAT's and their GPA's to get into the college of choice, so that's another thing kids have to worry about in high school. At a college your classes would not be back-to-back and you would have more time to study and do homework. Those are some reasons the class agreed high school is so hard.

After that discussion we started the beginning of A message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard. In the beginning it is shown that we are in the Spanish - American War where Cuba is trying to become independent. The US President wants to speak to the head of insurgents named Garcia, but no one could reach him or find him to deliver the presidents message. A guy named Rowan was sent to find Garcia because someone told the president he was the only one who could deliver the presidents letter to Garcia. With no instructions or hints about where Garcia was, Rowan strapped the letter to his heart and was dropped off on the coast of Cuba. Three weeks later he was on the other side of the coast and delivered the message. Elbert Hubbard relates this to workers these days and how the greatest workers who work very hard to get to the top and do whatever they can for their job are not recognized one bit, but the people not working are. He tells us that a worker should not ask unnecessary questions but instead just do the job like Rowan did. He tells us that the people who thrive and are needed in this world are people who can do anything they set their minds too with no excuses or questions. This is like high school because the people who do well in high school don't make excuses about what their supposed to do or complain about it, but instead they work very hard to do their work right without making excuses. These students are like Rowan because even if they complete a challenging task that some people can't achieve they are not recognized for their work. That is what I learned from A message to Garcia; that the people who survive this world are people who can.

First Day at JC!!!!!

Today at John Carroll was a really fun. I went to all of my classes and we went over all of the rules and expectations. The best part about my day was lunch when I got to see all my friends and talk about how our classes went. I got to see some of my friends during lunch and it was fun because we don't have classes together during the day. I also got fries at lunch and they tasted very good. I had a free mod before lunch in the cafeteria, so it felt like lunch was a lot longer than usual. I got to buy my food before everyone else got to the cafeteria and I didn't have to wait in the long lunch line. The worst part of my day was I got my schedule mixed up. I got a schedule that is double sided with my first and second semester classes, but I didn't know that, so I accidentally used the second semester side to find my Day E Mod 1 class. At first I thought it was weird I had Intro to Drawing and Design, but I trusted my schedule. Two minutes before the bell rang I started to think it was weird that no freshmen were in my class, so I took another look at my schedule and realized it was the wrong side of the schedule. I ran out of that class and sprinted to my actual class. I got to my class right n time because right after I entered the room the bell rang. That was the worst part of my day because I was almost late to my first day of STEAM class.

In Human Geography class I do not like my seat because it is all the way in the back and i can barley see anything. I would like to be closer to the front because that way I can see the board more clear and take better notes. If I was closer to the front I would also pay better attention to videos and power point slides. In the back it would be harder to see and take notes because I would have to look over all the taller people to see the board. That is why I don't like the seat I was given.